A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

To determine the time of Easter in any year, it was therefore only necessary to find out the precise time of the above full moon, and to calculate accordingly. Now if the solar year exactly corresponded with the lunar, the time of the paschal moon would be liable to no variation, and Easter would fall on the same day of every year; but as the lunar year is really shorter than the solar, by eleven days, it follows that the paschal moon must, for a course of years, always happen at a different period in each successive year. If then the above rule be observed, the time of Easter may vary from the 22nd of March to the 25th of April, but somewhere within these limits it will always fall. Hence the adoption by the Council of Nice of the Metonic Cycle, by which these changes might be determined with tolerable accuracy. From the great usefulness of this cycle, its numbers were usually written on the calendar in letters of gold, from which it derived the name of Golden Number.

GOOD FRIDAY. The Friday in Passion week received this name from the blessed effects of our Saviour’s sufferings, which are the ground of all our joy, and from those unspeakable good things he hath purchased for us by his death, whereby the blessed Jesus made expiation for the sins of the whole world, and by the shedding of his own blood, obtained eternal redemption for us. Among the Saxons it was called Long Friday; but for what reason, except for the long fastings and offices they then used, does not appear.

The commemoration of our Saviour’s sufferings hath been kept from the very first age of Christianity, and was always observed as a day of the strictest fasting and humiliation; not that the grief and affliction they then expressed did arise from the loss they sustained, but from a sense of the guilt of the sins of the whole world, which drew upon our blessed Redeemer that painful and shameful death of the cross.

The Gospel for this day (besides its coming in course) is properly taken out of St. John rather than any other evangelist, because he was the only one that was present at the passion, and stood by the cross while others fled: and, therefore, the passion being as it were represented before our eyes, his testimony is read who saw it himself, and from whose example we may learn not to be ashamed or afraid of the cross of Christ. The Epistle proves, from the insufficiency of the Jewish sacrifices, that they only typified a more sufficient one, which the Son of God did, as on this day, offer up, and by one oblation of himself then made upon the cross, complete all the other sacrifices, (which were only shadows of this,) and made full satisfaction for the sins of the whole world. In imitation of which Divine and infinite love, the Church endeavours to show her charity to be boundless and unlimited, by praying in one of the proper collects, that the effects of Christ’s death may be as universal as the design of it, namely, that it may tend to the salvation of all, Jews, Turks, infidels, and heretics.

How suitable the proper psalms are to the day, is obvious to any one that reads them with a due attention: they were all composed by David in times of the greatest calamity and distress, and do most of them belong mystically to the crucifixion of our Saviour; especially the twenty-second, which is the first for the morning, which was in several passages literally fulfilled by his sufferings, and, either part of it, or all, recited by him upon the cross. And for that reason (as St. Austin tells us) was always used upon that day by the African Church.

The first lesson for the morning is Genesis xxii., containing an account of Abraham’s readiness to offer up his son; thereby typifying that perfect oblation which was this day made by the Son of God; which was thought so proper a lesson for this occasion, that the Church used it upon this day in St. Austin’s time. The second lesson is St. John xviii., which needs no explanation. The first lesson for the evening contains a clear prophecy of the passion of Christ, and of the benefits which the Church thereby receives. The second lesson exhorts us to patience under afflictions, from the example of Christ, who suffered so much for us.—Wheatly.

The proper psalms and both the second lessons for Good Friday were added at the last review: and Genesis xxii., the first morning lesson, which was formerly read all through, limited to ver. 20.

GOOD WORKS. “Albeit that good works, which are the fruits of faith, and follow after justification, cannot put away our sins, and endure the severity of God’s judgment; yet are they pleasing and acceptable to God in Christ, and do spring out necessarily of a true and lively faith; insomuch that by them a lively faith may be as evidently known as a tree discerned by the fruit.”—Article XII.

Good works are inseparable from our union with Christ; but then as effects of that union, not as causes or instruments. “We are created in Christ Jesus unto good works.” “Ye are become dead to the law by the body of Christ, that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.” “As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine, no more can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit; for without me—separate from me—ye can do nothing.” While, however, we regard good works as effects of our union with Christ, we must remember that they are an end also, nay, the end for which we have been united to him; and if so, a condition of the continuance of our union. “The branch cannot,” it is true, “bear fruit of itself except it abide in the vine;” but yet its fruitfulness is the object of the care and pains which the vinedresser bestows upon it, and therefore a condition on which it is suffered to remain. “I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away. If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.” And as fruitfulness in good works is a condition on which we are suffered to continue in Christ, so also is it the measure according to which fresh supplies of grace are given; “every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.” “Whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance.” And yet further, which indeed follows upon the foregoing—our works are the rule by which God will judge us at the last day. These will declare, beyond all controversy, how far we have answered the end of our new creation; how far we have improved the talents intrusted to us; how far we are qualified and prepared for that kingdom, into which “there shall in nowise enter anything that defileth,” where “the people shall be all righteous,” where “the merciful” “shall receive mercy,” where “the pure in heart” “shall see God;” where the servant, who has so improved the pound intrusted to him as to have gained five pounds, shall be appointed to reign over five cities, and he who has gained ten pounds, shall have authority over ten cities.

It is one great secret of holy living to remember, that holiness is to be sought in and from Christ; to be wrought in us by his Spirit. We are too prone to overlook this great truth; to forget the strength which we have in Christ. We act as though, notwithstanding all that Christ hath done for us and in us, Christian virtue were nothing more than moral habits strengthened by exercise. Whereas, in truth, it takes a far higher range. It consists in habits doubtless; but they are habits of him who has been created anew in Christ Jesus; they are the habits of him who is one with Christ, and partaker of the Spirit of Christ; who has been planted together with Christ, in the likeness of his death, that he should be also in the likeness of his resurrection; and who has that blessed promise to cheer and encourage him in striving against sin. “Sin shall not have dominion over you, for ye are not under the law, but under grace.”—Heurtley.